Toledo citizens will get a chance to tell city leaders their feelings about the use of police and city revenues to provide protection for neo-Nazi and racist groups during white power rallies. More at this link to the post on my blog: Toledoans to Protest Use of City Funds to Protect Neo-Nazis
Toledoans to Protest Use of City Funds to Protect Neo-Nazis
Comments ... #
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it...
hmm...now where did I here that???
posted by MaggieThurber on Aug 06, 2007 at 02:54:55 pm #
I agree. They should pay for their own security. The police should be concerned about protecting the general public first, property second, and any group that is inciting a riot last.
The Nazi should have to put up at least a $1,000,000 bond for any police activity that may or may not be required for one of their visits. The bond would be payable first to city if a riot conditions occur and the remainder to the anyone who had damage.
Pay to speak? I couldn't disagree more with the Nazis, but they need to have the right to speak. If you require every politically unpopular group to post some sort of bond before speaking, you might as well delete the right to free speech from the Constitution.
posted by MoreThanRhetoric on Aug 06, 2007 at 05:24:19 pm #
This makes perfect sense to me. In a city where we may or may not have garbage service on any given week, it seems like misplaced priorities to voluntarily front hundreds of thousands of dollars for Neo-Nazis to hold a rally.
I don't know about the rest of the city, but I don't want to see these outrageous expenses passed along in the form of future tax increases.
If these kooks want to come here and threaten people they can call the police and wait for them to show up and rescue them like everyone else.
posted by ToledoTalker on Aug 06, 2007 at 05:53:14 pm #
Okay - I'd support a bond for incidental/unusual expenses as a result of such demonstrations/rallies ONLY IF such bonds were required of ALL groups so desiring to host/conduct similar events.
To decide now that you want to prohibit a rally - or charge for services for such a rally - simply because you don't like what they have to say or are afraid that things may get out of hand..is not right.
I don't like their message, either. But we cannot discriminate against them simply because there is the potential for disruption...
posted by MaggieThurber on Aug 06, 2007 at 06:09:45 pm #
Considering the group arranging this protest was involved in the October 15th riots or as they prefer to call it "uprising", the only fair way to do this would be to not only charge the initial protesters/demonstrators but also the counter groups that showed up as well.
:-)
I agree with morethanrhetoric and Maggiethurber on this. The freedom of speech is a fundamental right. Despite your feelings towards negative speech, they are entitled to speak with the same capability as any other group. In the same respect, the government cannot charge the group for protection when they don't charge other groups, agree with them or not.
I also agree with Lisa Renee. The anti-protester/protesters should just stay away. I know of a friend that was asked to protest against the last Nazi protest. He did not attend, but the group that asked him to did. Just stay away. I hate to sound like the blade JR, but everyone just needs to stay away. We will have peace if everyone stays away. There is no reason for a counter-protest.
The ultimate and most effective counter-protest is just for everyone to stay home.
The anti-protester/protesters should just stay away.
I bet that at least 99% of Toledoans will stay away, and they didn't need to be told to stay away. This 99% group of Toledoans was not sitting around waiting for someone to tell them how to act the next time the Nazis visited. The 99% crowd made the decision on their own to ignore the visit. Heck, many Toledoans are probably unaware that the Nazis are planning to visit Toledo this month.
The reality is, some Toledoans and outsiders will attend. Their minds are convinced already that attending is the right thing to do. They had planned to attend before they even heard of the next Toledo Nazi visit. This tiny percentage of the population is not going to read an op-ed or a message board and change their minds.
What killed me is watching a news report about what is to be expected during the Neo-Nazi visit. City leaders interviewed said they believed the people of Toledo would not resort to violence again. Then, in the very next couple of interviews with teens in the North End...the teens all said the violence will be worse this time.
Listen. These punk thug teens don't need a good reason to start rioting...lets be honest...they're looking for a reason. Also, this city is stupid to protect or pay for anything having to do with the idiot neo nazi's coming here.
I say, let them come with no media coverage and no police protection. The Toledo thugs and Neo Nazi's won't be as likely to get out of control when nobody is watching....and if they do...I say let them all kill each other. We will have less thugs in our community...and have less idiot Nazi's traveling to cities causing problems as well. Either way, Toledo wins.
A couple of general thoughts (cross-posted at Toledo Talk, Glass City Jungle, and my blog):
1. The efforts of groups like the ISO and local anarchists at the 15 October rally did not lead to violence. While approximately 50 organized activists showed up to protest, many hundreds more were just neighborhood citizens - black, Hispanic and white. This was an event in large part driven by cell phones and word-of-mouth.
2. Local residents did not require the prodding of leftist activists to be pissed about the arrival of Nazis in their neighborhood. They would have shown up to protest even if the ISO, ARA, or Skinheads Against Racism had not been present. To suggest otherwise is akin to 19th century slaveowners who claimed that slaves were happy with their lot until Yankee abolitionists showed up.
3. The Nazis know that if they announce a rally in advance, the city is obligated to provide protection. If they just showed up in a black neighborhood and started chanting stupidity like "N**GERS BACK TO AFRICA" or "DEATH TO NON-WHITES," they would get their as*es kicked. Heck, they would probably get a beatdown if they just walked around with their goofy uniforms on without all the "Sieg Heils" and Hitler-worship.
4. The neo-Nazis thrive on notoriety and publicity. That's why they go in for high-profile rallies and events, hoping to spark incidents that get them more coverage. Walking door-to-door or standing on a corner passing out pamphlets is pretty dull work for a jackbooted thug.
5. Yes, neo-Nazis have the right to free speech, but they do not have the right to disturb the peace, act in a disorderly fashion, or incite a riot. Much akin to the old example of shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theater, there are legal precedents on the limits to individual and group speech.
6. Attempts to force controversial groups to post a bond have been overthrown by courts. Municipalities can only charge small permit fees that accurately reflect the administrative costs of processing the rally permit.
7. Many of the socialists and anarchists are Toledo residents. There are strong local leftist organizations, although they have disagreements with each other about tactics. The ISO is solidly against violence, while other groups are more than willing to engage in physical confrontation if need be to oppose fascism.
posted by historymike on Aug 07, 2007 at 01:06:37 pm #
Is it leading the "violence" to ask someone "are you a man or are you an Uncle Tom"? Why aren't you out there fighting for your rights? Now maybe they weren't burning the property down, but sometimes you need brains.
As far as I know Hitler never engaged in the fisticuffs that the nascent National Socialist party engaged in, but he was instrumental in getting it off the ground. Sometimes a good rabble-rouser is worth a dozen strong-arm thugs.
posted by oldsendbrdy on Aug 07, 2007 at 01:41:23 pm #
Hitler's charisma and vision cannot be overlooked as factors in the rise of Nazi Germany, but the SA certainly contributed to the political violence that led to the fall of the Weimar Republic.
(heh - that was some relevant post-pimping if I ever saw any)
Hitler also played a direct role in Nacht der langen Messer ("The Night of the Long Knives"), in which hundreds of political rivals were murdered, including SA chief Ernst Röhm.
posted by historymike on Aug 07, 2007 at 01:55:59 pm #
Mike - this is why I disagree when you read directly what the October Fifteenth states:
The October Fifteenth Anarchist Collective is a Toledo, Ohio based group that formed from the ashes of the October 15th Uprising which we helped to organize and participate in.
They are claiming to be responsible, then when you read the information on the Toledo Solidarity MySpace it clearly confirms that opinion that the community responded when the anti-racist supporters were attacked. As well as justifying destruction of property and believing that the Toledo police were the main problem.
It’s hard to see a claim that they were responsible for the organization and participation in the “uprising” as being in support of non-violence with the way the information is presented.
So, to read that they are planning a rally to protest the City spending money to protect Neo-Nazis when the reality is the reason the costs were so high was also related to the counter-protesters does not seem to be a viable solution.
I realize you know more about these groups than I do, however going on how the information is presented, it’s hard to get a feeling of peace and non-violence from quite a bit of what is out there. I am sure that there are those within this group that are non-violent, most groups are made up of people of varying levels of belief in a philosophy.
(cross posted here and on GCJ)
As far as the violence of 15 October 2005:
I am not a proponent of violence as an expression of political opinion, and I agree that rioting as a means of protest has counter-productive consequences (jail, social condemnation, injury/death).
Still, many people take a paternalistic view of the North Toledo riot that irks me. I even heard Jack Ford take to task those "out-of-town" activists who "stirred up trouble," as if the rioters cannot think for themselves, and needed outside "agitators" to stir them up. Many people just don't want to recognize that there are a lot of struggling citizens for whom the Land of Opportunity is not living up to its billing.
The fact is that many of the rioters - whether misguided, or just opportunistic - had rational political motivations for their actions. In general, they were pissed that the city would allow the Nazis to march in their neighborhood, and saw the police as "protecting" the Nazis. Some also carried longstanding beefs with the police into the riot, and acted in a sense of payback.
And look also at the targets of the rioters: police, city vehicles, news media vehicles, Tom Szych's house (unfairly painted as a symbol of local neo-Nazism), Jim and Lou's Bar (a noted cop bar and allegedly an establishment that used to ban blacks). Don't get me wrong: I deplore the violence, but I also witnessed regular citizens driving through the riot without problems. Far and away the targets of violence were symbols of perceived elitism and authority.
Heck, I am a gawky white guy who wandered around all afternoon with a camera and a laptop, and never even got so much as a dirty look. When one kid bumped me as he heaved a brick toward the cops, he actually apologized.
Very surreal.
Now, I don't want to overstate the argument and equate the North Toledo riot with the French Revolution, or even the Boston Tea Party, but there are plenty of historical parallels when angry citizens take matters into their own hands and commit what are on the surface illegal acts. That is, unless we are happy with just accepting the riot as hooliganism, and don't care why the riot happened. Book 'em, Dan-O, and let someone else figure out what the hell happened.
And again: I am in no way justifying violence, vandalism, or arson, but I think we need to dig further than writing off rioters as mere hoodlums, unless we want repeats of 15 October 2005. In my opinion, the events of that day have much deeper roots than the way the mainstream media likes to play it, which is something like "a neighborhood dispute that turned into a riot."
That's exactly the way the Nazis want this to be interpreted, to help justify their calls for neo-Nazi paramilitary thugs to "take back" the neighborhoods.
Don't be a sucker and fall for the simplistic interpretations.
posted by historymike on Aug 07, 2007 at 02:23:48 pm #
Lisa:
Agreed that this is confusing. Let me add some background:
There were at least six distinct groups that participated in the protest that turned into the North Toledo riot. Some were simply anti-racist, while others were socialists, anarchists, and even Communists. Each of these groups has different philosophies, and each will interpret the events of that day in a different way.
If Group A passed out some flyers on LaGrange Street the days prior to the rally, they could claim that they "spaarked" the "uprising."
Group B will argue that it was a "spontaneous uprising in response to the presence of a neo-fascist invasion of the neighborhood."
Both views, in my opinion, are off the mark. This event was as much cellphone driven as anything else, and the only common denominator was that the people who gathered at Mulberry and Central despised the genocidal views of the Nazis.
The idea that the rioters "gained revolutionary consciousness" is a bit absurd. I heard no one spouting Marxist philosophy that day, except for a handful of activists in the early morning.
And today, there are still at least a dozen left-leaning and antiracist groups in the area. To someone in the political center or far right, you would think Socialists, Anarchists, and Communists would be best pals, but the truth is they agree on very little. An event like a neo-Nazi rally can bring them together for a few days, but they are back to their separate corners afterwards.
So the October Fifteenth and Toledo Solidarity groups may have some philosophical overlap - and might even share a few members - but they are as different as Democrats and Republicans.
(cross-posted on my blog and GCJ)
posted by historymike on Aug 07, 2007 at 02:33:18 pm #
What I see is something quite different and more sinister per my GCJ post:
I have posted on this on Swampbubbles. This only comfirms my suspicion that even if the majority of us stay home there are elements, both locally and from outside the area, that are waiting for an excuse to have a media event. If I were a wack-o conspiracy theorist I would even surmise that, like Hitler and Stalin, they will be “fellow travelers” until they feel strong enough to really engage in combat. Until then, these hypocrites will use any sore points to inflame the population, and hope that a flash point is reached. The question, “What if they gave a riot and no came?” is answered by the cynicism that, “They’ll truck in the rioters.”posted by oldsendbrdy on Aug 07, 2007 at 02:36:03 pm #
Well, so much for keeping a low profile, and laying low.
posted by oldsendbrdy on Aug 06, 2007 at 02:04:21 pm #